Video conferencing is a technology that has been instrumental in the advancement and development of global commerce. Video conferencing can facilitate meetings and collaborations between parties in different geographic locations, including different cities, states or provinces, and even different continents. Video conferencing can be conducted using dedicated video conferencing applications, or integrated into applications or websites for collaboration, social networking, public forums, and the like. In addition, dedicated and secured video conferencing systems can be used in business environments.
A video conferencing system typically includes one or more video capture devices in communication with a video conferencing server over a network. Some video conferencing systems even allow users to view multiple video streams at the same time. Video conferencing systems also typically include an audio capture device in communication with the video conferencing server.
The video and audio streams are generally communicated to the video conferencing server as digital data streams, such as Internet Protocol (IP) data streams. In other systems, the video is communicated independently of the audio. For example, some systems only communicate the video to the video conferencing server, while the audio is communicated via a telephone bridge.